Disorganized Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (10 page)

"Where'd you get the s?"

"America."

He did the math, came up with a number that smeared a greasy smirk across his mouth. "You belong to the old bitch."

No need to ask which old bitch he meant. I only knew one in Greece, though she wasn't exactly showing me her bitch card. I was, after all, her only granddaughter.

"And you are?"

"Nobody you want to know. But maybe you will know me anyway."

Deadpan: "Long name. How's that fit on your driver's license?"

Either he didn't get the joke or he was born without a funny bone. "They call me the Baptist."

Until then, he'd ignored my hand. When he accepted the offer, his hand was cool and dry. Snakeskin.

"Like The Edge? Or just Edge? Or the Edge? Because there's a difference."

Nothing. I guess he didn't know U2. Okay, next question. "Who is they?"

"People."

The question came out on its own. I tried to hold it back, but sometimes my mouth, it just does things without permission. "Did you kill him?"

"Who, Kefalas?"

"Forget I asked." The disclaimer rushed out with a
whoosh
.

"Maybe I don't want to forget it, eh? It's a good question." He swung around, still holding my hand, looked at the huge shapes near the rear of the factory floor. As my pupils adjusted, I saw they were vats, probably meant for curing olives. "You could say George Kefalas killed himself."

I jerked my hand away. "The Baptist? Why do they call you that?"

His throat and lungs rattled, then he spat on the ground, a big shiny oyster of a glob. "You never answered my question. What do you want with Kefalas?"

Spine straight, I tried to look as intimidating as a hundred-and-twenty-something-pound woman can look. "If you're not Kefalas then it's not your business."

"Not my business," he said, smile in his voice. "But it could be. So how about you tell me what you know."

When did we switch sides? Wasn't I supposed to be the one asking questions? Yep, pretty sure of it. "When did George Kefalas die?"

Nothing.

"Did he have any visitors lately? Maybe visitors in handcuffs?"

Silence. A whole lot of it.

"Did he maybe send some of his guys to America?"

The back of my neck prickled. Kefalas Olives was on a regular street so it was no surprise that there was some traffic (foot, bicycle, motorcycle, and cars) at my back. But this was something else. I was being watched. Or someone was eavesdropping on this mostly one-sided conversation. Whoever they were they were adding to my already chronic case of the willies.

The Baptist smiled. Probably he was the kind of guy no one wanted to see smile. He seemed like a man who got his jollies when people begged for mercy.

"You want to see George Kefalas? I'll take you to see George Kefalas."

Wow, what an offer.

"I'm not really good with dead people," I said. "But if he comes back to life, let me know."

"Most people in your position would want to see he's dead for themselves. In your family's business they like proof of death."

"You know what, if you say he's dead then I believe you." I wouldn't swallow anything else he told me, but that I believed.

"Dead, alive, maybe Kefalas can still help you."

Only a few feet stood between me and the outdoors, but if I dived for it I'd probably get concrete rash. Would it be worth it? Definitely. "Gee, I'd love to, but my ride is waiting."

"No ride." His smile went away. His voice took on a metal edge. "You came alone."

A bucket of ice emptied into my gut. I tried to ignore my bladder's sudden nagging. I pulled my phone out of my hip pocket, checked messages that weren't there.

"Got to go, otherwise my grandmother's henchmen are going to come looking for me." I bolted for the door. He was quicker. His fingers snapped around my wrist like a metal cuff. He squeezed until the bones sang. Tears flooded my eyes.

"Did I say you could go?"

"I wasn't asking for permission."

The emptiness of the factory thickened. All this equipment, all those offices upstairs around the rim of the factory floor, not a living soul in one of them who'd come to my rescue. If I didn't save myself, who would?

Nobody. That's who.

"Look," I said, trying to reason with my first—and hopefully last—psychopath. "I don't have a problem with you. I don't care why you're here or what you did to George Kefalas—if anything. I'm just looking for my father, and I was hoping Kefalas might know something. If Kefalas is dead and you can't help me, let me go find somebody who can."

The Baptist shoved me away from him.
Aww, Jesus—further away from the door
.

"Maybe I can't help you with your father problem, but maybe I can help you with something else. the Baptist is good at fixing problems." His gaze took a tour of my curves, taking a short break on my boobs before returning to my face. "You got a problem you want me to fix?"

He was the problem I wanted fixed—fixed like a dog. Despite the fact that I was potentially about to have lunch, dinner, and breakfast with Mom, I almost laughed. Thinking about getting a dog fixed always reminded me of Gary Larson's
The Far Side
cartoons. I pictured the Baptist hanging his head out a car window, crowing about how he was going to get tutored.

"Are you scared of the Baptist? Worried I might show you how I got the name? That's good. Scared is where you should be."

I had nothing. No gun, no pepper spray, no knife.

No hairspray.

Just my luck to be born not long before mall bangs collapsed, otherwise I could have Aqua Netted the guy into an asthma attack. Why hadn't I raided the compound's armory before sneaking out? Did the compound even have an armory?

If I survived this I'd have to find out.

Who knew if I could even shoot the guy if I had a gun?

"I'm going now," I said.

"Who said you could go? You're not going anywhere until I say. And I haven't said." His breath inched up my nose. A lot of garlic and something sour. His face contorted, and for a moment I imagined him as a slick skull, straight out of a horror movie. His mouth could open and I'd magically vanish, never to be heard from again.

This time he grabbed me by the ponytail, twisting it in his fist until I yelped. What flashed in front of my eyes wasn't my life—just parts of it. The bits where I'd sat too close to the television, mostly. That had nothing to do with what I did next. Understand that if there had been any other choice I'd have taken it, but sometimes you just have to hit a man where it really freakin' hurts.

My fist shot out, nailing him square in the twig and berries.

He gagged, dropping to his knees, hands on crotch.

Time for a getaway—or so I thought. the Baptist lunged forward, snaking his meaty hand around my ankle.
Bam
. I kissed the concrete floor—with teeth and tongue and both lips. Up close, the caustic brine stench burned my eyes. That hand reeled me in, dragging my body along the rough surface. I clawed at the ground but I wasn't moving forward. Out of luck. Almost out of time.

A gun bit into the silence.

Two shots.

The hand pulling me stopped. Dimly, as though through a closed door, I heard boots beating the ground—running, I decided, away from me. Away was good. I leopard crawled toward the factory door, hoping those bullets weren't meant for me. I really didn't have any place to put them.

Another bullet whizzed past my head. Then a hand reached out, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, pulled me into the standing position. I squealed and flailed, then I went limp where I saw who had me.

Xander. He'd busted in like the Terminator, and apparently I had to go with him if I wanted to live. Except he said nothing, the way he always did. All the noise was coming from me. I'd cornered the market on whimpering.

No sign of the Baptist, so now seemed like a good idea to bolt back to my car, in case he decided Xander was out of ammo. Except I wasn't going anywhere: Xander still had a grip on my neck. I was hanging there like a kitten.

"Help," I whispered.

My voice box had quit on me after that last scream. My face was slippery with sweat, my pits, too. Those smoldering women gyrating on dance floors in antiperspirant commercials never met the Baptist, I'd bet. I reeked of decaying olive brine and fear.

Xander didn't seem to give a toss. He tucked me under his arm like I was luggage, carried me down the street, my hair and limbs dangling. Which left me to alternate bargaining with threatening the deities of all the major and minor religions I could recall on short notice. Which turned out to be quite a few, although—I suspected—some of them were characters from Pratchett's
Discworld
novels.

He jagged left at the next street, toward, I realized, the factory's rear. Not cool. I wanted to be moving
away
from the Baptist, not closer.

I might have said something unintelligible like, "Arrrrgh."

The narrow street contained a small clutch of shops, where people were going about their business and—being Greek—everyone else's. I tried lifting my head, but gravity was working against me. I suppose I could have screamed for help, but this was what passed for help in my messed up family.

Xander stopped at the mouth of the narrow alley that ran behind the factory and its neighbors, and plonked me on the ground. It was empty aside from the dumpsters cozied up to the walls. The air was lifeless. Here the stench of garbage was almost physical. Every breath I took meant I was inhaling someone's decaying leftovers. Guess the sea breeze couldn't stick its finger in here and stir.

Xander dragged me into the upright position, slammed my back against the crumbling stucco and stone wall. My skull bounced once. When reality swam back in I saw his face was painted with anger, his eyes were black and cold.

He said nothing—he never did—but his meaning was clear: I was an idiot for going into the factory alone. He was right, but I'd rather lick the ground in this alley than admit it. Instead of a verbal beating, he shook me hard enough that my teeth bit down on my tongue. I tasted metal and salt.

"I hate you," I said in two languages, wishing I knew a third.

A door opened several feet away. My entire body seized. It wanted to run, and would have if it wasn't busy being pinned to a wall.

"I thought I told you to go home."

Detective Melas. He stepped into the alley, no sign of his uniform this time. He was in ass-kicking boots, jeans, and he'd topped it off with a T-shirt that proclaimed his love for the Scorpions.

My humiliation was complete. I blame that for what came out of my mouth next.

"It's your fault I'm here."

Normally I'm not one to point the finger. I go through life wearing my big-girl panties hitched high. But that's back home, where people threaten to wring my neck but lack the technology to do it via the phone. Here I was going commando.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he demanded.

"I was doing your job." I shot Xander my best stink-eye, then swiveled it left a few inches. "And yours. No one else is looking for my father."

"Did you find him?" Melas asked.

"No."

"Of course you didn't. Your father's not here. He never was. And George Kefalas is dead." He looked at Xander. "He's floating in one of the vats. All that saline, it's like the Dead Sea."

"That's what he said."

"Who?" He shot an inquiring glance at Xander, but Xander was busy not talking.

"The Baptist," I told him. "He told me Kefalas was dead."

"Jesus Christ." He rubbed his forehead. "The Baptist."

"What? Who is he? Besides evil. I got that part already."

"Jesus Christ. This I need. Of all the people you could have antagonized …"

"Hey!" I was pinned to the wall but I could still point. And I did. I pointed so hard I almost punched a hole in the air. "
He
antagonized
me
. I wasn't even looking for him. He just … happened to be here. Did he kill Kefalas? Because it kind of sounded like he did."

Xander dropped me. I landed with a small thump, then shook myself off, straightened my clothes, tried to regain some dignity. But it's so hard to look cool when you've been hand-stapled to a wall.

Detective Melas shrugged. "Don't know yet. But somebody killed him."

"So, we done here?" I crab-walked along the alley, aiming for the sunshine I knew was in the street. "Thanks for the rescue, guys." Then I stopped. Turned. "Wait a minute …" Now that the adrenaline was ebbing, my clarity was flooding back. Math happened and the answers seemed right. "Were you two following me?"

"He was," Melas said, nodding to the other guy.

My eyes narrowed. "What's your excuse?"

"None of your business."

"If it's about my father's kidnapping, it kind of is my business."

"It's not," he said. "Take her home." That was for Xander. "And by home I mean America. Take her to the airport and make sure she gets on a plane."

"I don't have a passport, remember?"

"So get one."

"You're not the boss of me."

"I'm not, am I?" His eyes grazed my body as he said it. "We'll see."

"Can't be the boss of me if I'm back in America."

A wicked grin spread itself slowly across his face. "Honey, once a man's the boss of you, he's the boss of you anywhere. Oceans be damned."

My mouth fell open. I could feel it hanging there in the thick, stagnant air. If I didn't snap it shut soon the drooling would start. He'd take that compliment. Melas struck me as that kind of guy.

Get away from him, that's what I had to do. Not only did I stink, but now my ass was seriously chapped.

"I'm going now." On one boot heel, I swiveled and exited the alley stage right. It took all my restraint not to flip them off.

They followed. Of course they did. So predictable and overbearing.

My everything hurt. Belly-flopping onto the concrete will do that. But there was no way I was going to show these two my sissy card. I girded my woman loins, adjusted my girl-balls, took strong confident steps when my knees were on red alert, warning me of their imminent collapse. Still it wasn't a struggle for the men to keep up.